Benny Kirk
1,727 ARTICLES
This MiG-21 Trainer Just Finished a Major Overhaul, For Sale to Eccentric Millionaires
3 Sep 2023, 17:33 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Stick an ex-Soviet Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG 21 onto a modern battlefield with advanced contemporary weaponry, and the results are bound to be like bringing a butter knife to a machete fight. As historically significant as the jet may be, its days of ef...
NASA's LRO Spots Crater Where Russia's Luna 25 Probe Went Splat
2 Sep 2023, 17:51 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / As NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter made its rounds around the Moon this week, the 14-year veteran space probe ran across something peculiar. In a spot near the southwest rim of the Moon's Pontécoulant G crater that LRG had scan...
Sports Car in the Sky: How the Boeing 757 Became the Most Overpowered Airliner Ever Built
2 Sep 2023, 02:17 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / In a lot of ways, the Boeing 757 is built like Mike Tyson. They aren't the biggest frames in the world by any means, but both packed a punch far beyond their stature. Ham-fisted analogies between boxers and civil airliners aside, the 757 was a...
Lewis Hamilton's Not Going Anywhere, Signs New Deal With Mercedes Through 2025
31 Aug 2023, 23:18 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / In a move reminiscent of one NBA legend taking his talents to South Beach, Formula One's biggest contract expiration in ages just reached its dramatic conclusion. Unlike LeBron James, Lewis Hamilton won't be going anywhere anytime soon. I...
Skoda Flexes Fancy Interiors for All-New Kodiaq and Superb, Still Unobtanium in the U.S.
30 Aug 2023, 21:55 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Of all the European automotive brands not available in the United States, Skoda is routinely among the most fascinating to gaze at from afar. A subsidiary of the Volkswagen group, there's a sense that Skoda vehicles exude an heir of refinement...
Polaris Marine and Forza X1 Join Forces To Trial Two EV Pontoon Boat Prototypes
30 Aug 2023, 20:06 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / If you own a pontoon boat, it's because you want to glide across the water in as much abject comfort and luxury as humanly possible. For some people, adding a stinky, emissions-heavy internal combustion engine kind of spoils things a bit. If y...
German Leopard 2 Tanks are Holding Strong in Ukraine, Lost Just Five So Far
30 Aug 2023, 17:56 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / In a turn of events first reported by Forbes, Germany's prized main battle tank, the Leopard 2, is already paying dividends in Lend-Lease service to the Ukrainians. In the 13 or so weeks since the first shipments of Leopard 2s arrived on the f...
Ukraine Might Never Get the A-10 Warthog, But the Renderings are Still Awesome
28 Aug 2023, 22:50 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Tens of billions of dollars worth of foreign military hardware and financial liquidity have been sent to Ukraine since the start of its invasion and occupation by Russia last February. But since day one, the most noteworthy assets which haven'...
This Fiat G.59 Was Italy’s Answer to the Spitfire and Mustang, It’s Up for Grabs
28 Aug 2023, 02:22 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / After the end of the Second World War, the Italian state had to contend not just with the destruction of the Musolini and the resulting chaos but also the nagging issue of how to revitalize one of the most historic aeronautical-producing nations in...
Another V-22 Osprey Crashes Over Australian Island, Three Marines Lost and Five Wounded
28 Aug 2023, 01:46 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Upon the soil of the U.S.'s long-time allies in Australia, the lives of three American Marines were cut tragically short when a Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor transport aircraft crashed on the remote Melville Island roughly 60 km (37.3 mi)...
ECD Automotive's LT1-Swapped E-Type Combines 70's English Charm With Modern American Grunt
28 Aug 2023, 00:39 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / It makes perfect sense that ECD Automotive Design's world-renowned restomod shop in Kissimmee, Florida, is just an hour from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. Why? Because this LT1-swapped Series 3 E-Type Jag they just finished is a ...
Embraer's Legacy 600 Had a Near Perfect Safety Record, Until Prigozin's Final Flight
27 Aug 2023, 21:48 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Before the events of August 23rd, 2023, the Embraer Legacy 600/650 was just another mundane twin-engine business jet with some admittedly impressive luxury features on offer. Still, it's not the kind of aircraft that common folks have much rea...
Interview: Polaris' SteelDrive Transmission Isn't Your Dad's CVT, It's Even Better
27 Aug 2023, 03:33 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / One nearly-universal sentiment in the orbit around modern car culture binds together muscle car, European, and JDM fandoms regardless of their backgrounds; we all freaking hate continuously variable transmissions. When someone wise to how modern au...
Henry McDonough’s LS2-Swapped Volvo 242 is Everything You Want in a Restomod
26 Aug 2023, 21:33 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The Volvo 240 series was one of the first non-domestic automobiles that made Americans really think about whether size is better in an automotive context. Among the carbureted V8 land barges that the 240 shared American roads in the States, it was ...
Driven: Polaris' RANGER XD 1500 Could Be the Most Capable UTV Ever Built
26 Aug 2023, 18:19 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / It can be pretty easy to fall victim to hyperbole in this business. But there's something to be said about an industry leader so eager to take their sector by the horns and show everyone where things are headed. Though not the first to invent ...
Sukhoi Su-15: A Soviet Interceptor Defined by One Tragic Shootdown
26 Aug 2023, 15:52 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / There's a handful of military planes that, no matter the specifics of their backstory, will always be defined by one incident that secured its place in history books for the rest of time. Whether it's the B-29 bomber for dropping twin nuk...
This 1988 Nissan Pulsar Station Wagon Breaks the Quirky Meter, Might Be the Best One Left
23 Aug 2023, 18:13 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / You know you're a jaded automotive journalist when you see a Ferrari F8 Tributo rolling down the street, and your natural reaction isn't abject elation but rather the same malaise you'd get seeing a late-model Corolla. But older, wei...
Combat Vet Focke-Wulf Fw-190 Pulled from River, Needs TLC and a Few Gallons of Degreaser
23 Aug 2023, 15:45 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / In its day, pilots used to call the Focke-Wulf Fw-190 the Würger (Butcher Bird) because it was so adept at shooting down Allied aircraft. But when this 1944 example was pulled from the woods in Northwest Russia, the only thing it was shooting ...
India Beats Russia to the Moon, Chandrayaan-3 Probe Lands at the Lunar South Pole
23 Aug 2023, 14:23 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / "This success belongs to all of humanity," is what India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi said to describe the gravity of the success of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft as it touched down on the surface of the lunar South Pole. In doing s...
Indonesia Goes All In on the F-15EX Eagle II, Here's Why It's a Big Deal
23 Aug 2023, 03:01 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Questions about whether fourth-generation jet fighters have a place on a modern battlefield between two peer-to-peer superpowers continue to abound in contemporary aviation circles. But Boeing and the U.S. Air Force are confident that the F-15EX Ea...